Sebastian Gorka has unsurprisingly been tapped by Donald Trump once again. This time he’ll be senior director for counterterrorism, which is National Security Council role. Gorka will work with sensitive intelligence and be a lead voice in advising the President how to look tough in a scary world. The job is yet another feather in the cap of a man who has held many jobs for many governments, despite questionable qualifications, uncertain loyalties, dalliances with groups that might be Nazi-ish, not to mention a level of expertise has been compared to a bad joke.
Gorka was born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian immigrants. He served in the British Army, working in intelligence for a few years. Later, he seems to have had a longing for some heritage, and moved to Hungary. There he would eventually earn a role working for the Hungarian Parliament in 2002, investigating their own Prime Minister. But Gorka was denied a security clearance over fears he was a spy.
A couple years later, Gorka was in Germany working on a US DOD project. A handful of jobs for the United States led Gorka to finally cross the big pond in 2008, and he’s been here, since. Most of his positions were academic in nature, to include the US DOD National Defense University and Georgetown University. And he would earn a doctorate along the way.
So what’s a guy with such seemingly impressive academic credentials to do with himself if not working for various international governments as some kind of intelligence mercenary? Well in 2014 the answer was clear for Gorka: Go work for a shill news rag in the form of Breitbart. Eventually, Gorka would ride Steve Bannon’s coattails into the Donald Trump orbit, and a place in his 2016 administration as part of Steve Bannon’s shadow NSC.
The reason for Gorka’s working the B-list circuit might be that his true acumen seems to regularly be found lacking by those who have the chance to look closely. Daniel Nexon of Georgetown University says that Gorka’s doctoral thesis is “inept.” And while he didn’t come right out and accuse Gorka of plagiarism, he’s also said that Gorka’s Ph.D may as well have been mail ordered because parts of the thesis were repurposed from other sources. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Andrew Reynolds pointed out there are discrepancies between normal doctoral degree procedures and how Gorka was awarded his own. Specifically, that two of the three referrers were under educated, and that one of the three had a personal interest in the candidate’s thesis. Reynold’s own assessment of Gorka’s thesis is that it is “a page of generalized comments – completely at odds with the detailed substantive and methodological evaluations that I’ve seen at every Ph.D defense I’ve been on over the last twenty years.”
Of course, it doesn’t take a doctorate to qualify someone as well educated and informed. But even putting the questions of his doctorate aside, Steven Walt of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government has said that “Gorka does not have much of a reputation in serious academic or policymaking circles,” and that “His only real ‘qualification’ was his prior association with Breitbart News.” Business Insider editor Pamela Engel concluded that Gorka is “widely disdained within his own field.” When Mia Bloom of Georgia State University met Gorka while speaking with him at a conference about ISIS she thought Gorka was a joke, and noted that he was making “incredibly basic errors.” Regardless of what piece of paper should or should not hang on his wall, Gorka just isn’t a well regarded mind.
Maybe all of this is why Sebastian Gorka was fired from his first White House job days after Steve Bannon was shown the door, and clearing the way for then National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster to rid himself of the dunce. Gorka, claimed that he resigned, seemingly even offering a resignation letter when he was told to get out. Tough guys are sensitive about their egos.
As the first Trump administration drew to a close, Gorka began spreading election denialist misinformation about the 2020 Presidential election. This led to Gorka being banned by YouTube a few months after President Biden took office.
This time around, the Trump administration has little use for experts, and desperate need for sycophants and hard nose extremists. In a bro-vote ushered bromance administration meant to be big on sycophants and light on experts, “Dr.” Sebastian Gorka should should fit in nicely.
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